Good Will Hunting (1997)Movie Script

CLARK:

How'd you like that course?

CHUCKIE:

Good, it was all right.

CLARK:

History? Just "history?" It must have been a survey course then.

Chuckie nods. Clark notices Chuckie's clothes. Will and Billy exchange a look and move subtly closer.

CLARK:

Pretty broad. "History of the World?"

CHUCKIE:

Hey, come on pal we're in classes all day. That's one thing about Harvard never seizes to amaze me, everybody's talkin' about school all the time.

CLARK:

Hey, I'm the last guy to want to talk about school at the bar. But as long as you're here I want to "seize" the opportunity to ask you a question.

Billy shifts his beer into his left hand. Will and Morgan see this. Morgan rolls his eyes as if to say "not again..."

CLARK:

Oh, I'm sure you covered it in your history class.

Clark looks to see if the girls are impressed. They are not.

When Clark looks back to Chuckie, Skylar turns to Lydia and rolls her [own] eyes. They laugh. Will sees this and smiles.

CHUCKIE:

To tell you the truth, I wasn't there much. The class was rather elementary.

CLARK:

Elementary? Oh, I don't doubt that it was. I remember the class, it was just between recess and lunch.

Will and Billy come forward, stand behind Chuckie.

CHUCKIE:

All right, are we gonna have a problem?

CLARK:

There's no problem. I was just hoping you could give me some insight into the evolution of the market economy in the early colonies. My contention is that prior to the Revolutionary War the economic modalities especially of the southern colonies could most aptly be characterized as agrarian precapitalist and... Will, who at this point has migrated to Chuckie's side and is completely fed-up, includes himself in the conversation.

WILL:

Of course that's your contention.

You're a first year grad student.

You just finished some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison prob'ly, and so naturally that's what you believe until next month when you get to James Lemon and get convinced that Virginia and Pennsylvania were strongly entrepreneurial and capitalist back in 1740. That'll last until sometime in your second year, then you'll be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood about the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization.

CLARK:

(taken aback) Well, as a matter of fact, I won't, because Wood drastically underestimates the impact of--

WILL:

"Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth..." You got that from "Work in Essex County," Page 421, right? Do you have any thoughts of your own on the subject or were you just gonna plagiarize the whole book for me?

Clark is stunned.

WILL:

Look, don't try to pass yourself off as some kind of an intellect at the expense of my friend just to impress these girls.

Clark is lost now, searching for a graceful exit, any exit.

WILL:

The sad thing is, in about 50 years you might start doin' some thinkin' on your own and by then you'll realize there are only two certainties in life.